Landlords, property owners are new targets in anti-pot strategy

[DreamSmoker]

The federal government is intensifying its efforts to smother California’s pot industry by targeting not only medical marijuana dispensaries and growers, but also those who do business with them.

The latest possible targets: landlords and property owners who rent buildings or land where dispensaries sell or cultivators grow marijuana.

The U.S. attorneys from California’s four federal districts are preparing to unveil in the coming days their latest effort to push a coordinated statewide marijuana enforcement strategy. That approach includes the possible seizure of land or buildings leased to marijuana operations that may be legal under state law but remain illegal under federal statutes.

William Panzer, an Oakland attorney who co-authored Proposition 215, the 1996 ballot initiative that legalized medical marijuana in California, said the days are numbered for the current model for medical marijuana dispensaries.

http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/landlords-property-owners-are-new-targets-anti-pot-strategy-12967



Hang on to your shirt.. It may be the only thing you have left when the Feds are done...

[midnight]

1. K&R..

[madrchsod]

2. "...i think i`ll do like a mole.....

and move underground.." (b.b.king)


to bad the feds did not regulate the banks and investment firms...

[msongs]

3. maybe our christian president will start murdering people with drones in CA nt

[krabigirl]

5. and bigots will cheer him on.

[ZombieHorde]

4. Both the Dems and Repubs are waging war against the sick in their own ways.

:cry:

Obedience is vice. Disobedience is virtue.

[On the Road]

6. Reeks of Desperation §

/

[CrispyQ]

7. The war on drugs was always about filling the for-profit prisons & seizing property.

It doesn't matter how little your property is worth or how few assests you have. The elite want it all & they will eventually find a way to take take it all. Too bad they're so short sighted & greedy:

"You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them.
But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again."

~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

[Riftaxe]

12. Exactly how do you fit that into

the timeline that reality forces us to base such decisions on?

I would start with the declaration on the war on drugs, then move on to when the few privatized prisons were first created.

I suspect you might have to do some time traveling to justify it though.

[CrispyQ]

16. You asked:

"Exactly how do you fit that into the timeline that reality forces us to base such decisions on?"

We may run out of time. I think we have way less of everything than we think we have. We're like the addict that wakes up & realizes there are only a few hits left & no source for more.

I hope OWS is a start. I hope it isn't too late, because I don't see a good end to the trajectory our species is on.

[Riftaxe]

17. I do appreciate the quote

and it is hardly hard to argue with

We may run out of time. I think we have way less of everything than we think we have. We're like the addict that wakes up & realizes there are only a few hits left & no source for more.

But I think you will find the time line does not match the introduction of private prisons, nor are private prisons as numerous as most people think.

All that said, i think it is a shame that we allow private prisons in the first place.

[RegieRocker]

13. No it wasn't it might be a part of the strategy now

but it was because they were scared that people wouldn't take their bullshit anymore. That they would become too aware. People who drink like to fight not those who smoke pot. They needed idiots for wars. Alcohol gives them just that. That is the makeup of the radical pickled brain right wingers.

[bemildred]

8. An inadvertent admission that direct enforcement is not feasible.

Hence the resort to fear and hostage taking.

[Tsiyu]

9. Where is the money for this?

When they keep telling us we're broke, how do they justify this flippant use of our limited resources?

I wonder if they're hoping people will just get fed up and riot? Not specifically about this issue, but over the ridiculously lopsided application of law: pollute an entire gulf? Sure! Destroy people's futures with risky speculation? No problema!
Smoke a joint? Die sucker!

It's like living in a National Lampoon satire from back in the day.

[Lionessa]

10. Seriously, medically or otherwise, if I were the president just about now,

knowing that since nothing is getting done to help the masses, I'd F'ING ENCOURAGE pot smoking since it seems to keep folks a little more mellow in times of hardship and anger.

[SteveM]

11. There is a history of this...

In the late 80s, G H W Bush stoked up the W.O.D. by using a tortured version of admiralty law which allowed LEOs to confiscate property (real, vehicle, capital goods, etc.) associated with the possession/manufacturing of pot. This allowed local LEOs to enrich themselves greatly by seizing property, liquidating same, and using the cash for whatever purposes; it was up to the property owners to sue if, say, someone was growing a truck patch of dope on his/her 500 acre ranch without the owner's knowledge. The process was long and often unsuccessful. This allowed (unlike with alcohol prohibition) incentives for local LEOs to carry the burden of W.O.D. enforcement.

But enough of the victims of this scheme were rather wealthy folks, folks who voted GOP. Those parts of the law were weakened (I believe Rep. Hyde (R)) saw the abuse and changed the law. Democrats, of course, are always cowed down on this issue, so it took the GOP to clean up their own shit. Evidently, there is something of a comeback on this approach; after all, there is no opposition to anything the far right is doing.

Prohibitionism -- be it gays, ganja, guns, gin and the upcoming new kid on the block, tobacco -- WILL BE PURSUED by the feds, if necessary by-passing the states, and most especially through the executive branch. A passive center-right president (Obama is that) will not stand in the way. The move against California's growers and dispensers was predicted, and it will be aggressive and confrontational.

[snappyturtle]

14. This is an interesting, if not, disheartening read. Does it seem like all

of a sudden the populace in general is being targeted on many fronts? Or, is this revelation of mine the accumulation on damage done over the last few years and now TPTB are doing their Fall harvest?

[RegieRocker]

15. Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol.

53,143 signatures and growing.


The White House Reviews and Responds

Once the petition reaches the required threshold, it will be put in a queue to be reviewed by the White House. Others can still sign the petition while it is awaiting a response from the White House. When the White House responds, everyone who has signed the petition will get email from the White House to let you know that we’ve reviewed and responded to the petition.

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/legalize-and-regulate-marijuana-manner-similar-alcohol/y8l45gb1

I am waiting Mr. President

[TransitJohn]

18. Thanks again Barry. n/t

eom

[mdmc]

19. ..